Two boys disappear during a violent storm. Their mother and teacher search desperately for them. Then, suddenly, the rain is gone, the sunlight returns, and the boys run together through a beautiful green landscape.
But are Minato and Yori actually alive?
Or is the final scene of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster (2023) showing us something far more tragic—a vision of the afterlife?
It is one of the film’s most debated questions.
Some viewers interpret the final moments as a happy ending. Others believe the boys died inside their abandoned train carriage and that their joyful escape represents a spiritual rebirth.
The film offers visual clues that can support both interpretations.
However, there is one especially important piece of evidence that changes the discussion: Kore-eda himself has explained what he intended the ending to mean.
And his answer is more hopeful than many viewers expect.
Spoiler warning: This article reveals the ending and major story developments of Monster (2023).
Did Minato and Yori Die at the End of Monster (2023)?
According to director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s own interpretation, Minato and Yori are alive.
In an interview with 1883 Magazine, Kore-eda addressed the divided reactions to the ending. He acknowledged that some audiences understood the final sequence as a depiction of death or the afterlife.
But he explained that, for him, the boys were not dead.
He intended their final run through the sunlight to represent self-acceptance and celebration.
That is the clearest answer to the film’s central ending mystery.
However, there is an important distinction between the director’s intention and what the film explicitly proves on screen.
The movie does not conclude with a conventional rescue scene.
We do not see the boys reunited with their families.
We do not receive a final explanation of how they escaped the storm.
Instead, the film ends with an almost dreamlike image of freedom.
That creative decision allows the death interpretation to remain emotionally understandable, even though it differs from the director’s stated intention.
To understand why, we need to return to the storm.
What Happens During the Storm?
In the final section of Monster, the story shifts toward the experiences of two elementary school boys, Minato Mugino and Yori Hoshikawa.
Throughout the film, adults misunderstand their relationship.
Minato struggles with feelings he cannot easily express.
Yori faces bullying at school and abuse from his father.
Together, the boys discover a place where they can escape the expectations surrounding them: an abandoned train carriage hidden in a wooded area.
They transform it into a private world.
Inside the train, they can play, talk, and imagine a different future.
But their refuge becomes dangerous when a powerful storm arrives.
The rain intensifies.
The surrounding landscape becomes unstable.
Minato’s mother, Saori, and his teacher, Mr. Hori, search desperately for the missing boys.
When they reach the train carriage, the situation appears frightening.
The audience has every reason to fear that the children may have been trapped or killed.
Then the film changes perspective.
Instead of showing the adults discovering the boys, we see Minato and Yori emerge into a bright landscape after the storm.
They run together, smiling.
The contrast is so striking that it creates the film’s central ambiguity.
Why Do Some Viewers Think the Boys Died?
The death interpretation is not an unreasonable reaction.
Several details make the ending resemble a transition from life to an imagined afterlife.
1. The Sudden Change From Darkness to Sunlight
The storm sequence is filled with danger, uncertainty, and fear.
The final scene is almost impossibly beautiful.
The rain has stopped.
The landscape is green.
The light is warm.
The boys appear joyful and free.
For some viewers, this visual transition resembles the cinematic language of death and spiritual release.
The children seem to have escaped not merely the storm but the entire world that caused them suffering.
The emotional contrast can make the ending feel less like a realistic rescue and more like a vision of paradise.
But sunlight alone is not evidence that the characters have died.
It can also symbolize relief, renewal, and the possibility of a different future.
The same image supports two very different emotional readings.
2. The Adults Never Reunite With the Boys
Saori and Hori search for the children during the storm.
Their desperation gives the final act much of its suspense.
Yet the film does not provide the reassuring reunion that viewers might expect.
There is no final embrace.
No ambulance scene.
No conversation confirming that the boys are safe.
This absence leaves an uncomfortable question hanging over the ending.
If Minato and Yori survived, why not show the adults finding them?
One possible answer is that Kore-eda deliberately shifts the emotional focus away from the adults.
For most of the film, adults interpret the children’s lives without fully understanding them.
The final scene belongs to the boys.
Their happiness is not presented through an adult’s approval or confirmation.
They are allowed to exist outside the perspectives that have repeatedly misunderstood them.
3. The Film Repeatedly Discusses Rebirth
Minato and Yori imagine the possibility of being reborn.
The idea is especially important because both boys have been made to feel that something about them is wrong.
They are surrounded by expectations about what boys should be like, how families should behave, and what counts as normal.
Rebirth seems to offer an escape.
If they could become different people, perhaps they would no longer suffer.
This makes the final scene particularly mysterious.
The boys emerge from a storm into a bright new world.
Are they literally reborn after death?
Or have they discovered that they do not need to become different people at all?
The film’s final exchange points toward the second possibility.
What Does the Final Rebirth Dialogue Mean?
Near the end, the boys wonder whether they have been reborn.
They realize that they are still themselves.
That realization is central to the film’s meaning.
Earlier, the possibility of rebirth suggested that happiness might require transformation.
Perhaps they needed different bodies.
Different identities.
Different lives.
But the ending reverses that assumption.
They do not need to become someone else.
They can remain Minato and Yori.
The problem was never that they were fundamentally wrong.
The problem was that the world around them made it difficult for them to accept themselves.
This is supported by Kore-eda’s comments in an interview with Film Comment.
He explained that a central question behind the film was whether the children needed to change or whether the world itself needed to change.
His answer was that the boys should be able to affirm who they already are.
The final scene therefore presents a different understanding of rebirth.
Rebirth does not have to mean becoming a new person. It can mean discovering that the person you already are deserves to live freely.
Why Is the Railway Barrier Missing at the End?
One of the most discussed visual details is the railway crossing barrier.
Earlier in the film, the boys encounter a barrier that marks a boundary in their secret world.
In the final sequence, viewers have noticed that the obstruction appears to be gone.
For supporters of the death theory, this can seem like an important clue.
If the physical environment has changed, perhaps the boys are no longer in the same reality.
The missing barrier could represent a passage into another world.
But there is another interpretation.
A barrier is a symbol of restriction.
It tells people where they may and may not go.
Throughout Monster, Minato and Yori encounter boundaries created by adults.
They are told how boys should behave.
They are pressured to conform.
Their relationship becomes something others misunderstand or judge.
The absence of the barrier in the final scene can therefore symbolize the removal of those restrictions.
The boys are no longer stopped by the rules that confined them.
They can run forward.
Does the Missing Barrier Prove the Boys Are Dead?
No.
It is a visual detail open to interpretation, not definitive proof of death.
The film does not explicitly identify the missing barrier as evidence of an afterlife.
Nor does it provide a literal explanation for every change in the final landscape.
Its strongest symbolic function is the suggestion that a boundary has disappeared.
Whether viewers understand that disappearance as spiritual or psychological depends on their broader reading of the ending.
Kore-eda’s own explanation favors liberation and self-acceptance rather than death.
What Happened Inside the Abandoned Train?
The abandoned train is one of the film’s most important locations.
For the adults, it becomes a frightening place where the missing children may be trapped.
For Minato and Yori, it has an entirely different meaning.
It is their refuge.
A place where they can escape bullying, family pressure, and the fear of being judged.
They create a private world that feels safer than the one outside.
This contrast is crucial to the film’s three-part structure.
The same location can represent danger to one person and safety to another.
The train also connects with the story’s recurring ideas about journeys and rebirth.
The boys imagine traveling beyond the limitations of their ordinary lives.
But the final scene changes the meaning of that journey.
They do not need to escape into a completely different existence.
They need the freedom to live as themselves.
Did the Train Collapse and Kill Them?
The storm and damage around the train make the possibility frighteningly plausible.
However, the film does not explicitly confirm that the boys die inside it.
The final sequence does not show their bodies being discovered.
Nor does it provide an unambiguous account of their deaths.
The claim that the train killed them is therefore an interpretation rather than an established plot fact.
It is possible to understand why viewers fear that outcome without treating it as the film’s confirmed ending.
Why Does the Ending Feel Like an Afterlife Scene?
Part of the answer lies in how movies teach audiences to read images.
A violent storm followed by brilliant sunlight can suggest passage from suffering into peace.
Children running freely through a beautiful landscape can resemble a vision of innocence beyond death.
The absence of a conventional rescue scene strengthens that impression.
But Monster uses those images to ask a different question.
Why does freedom for these children seem almost impossible in the ordinary world?
Why do we so readily interpret their happiness as something that could exist only after death?
This is where the film becomes especially challenging.
If the boys are alive, their joyful escape is not a reward in another world.
It is a demand placed upon this one.
The world must become a place where children like Minato and Yori can live without shame.
Their happiness should not require tragedy.
What Did Hirokazu Kore-eda Actually Say About the Ending?
Kore-eda has discussed the ending in several interviews.
His statements provide unusually direct insight into the intended meaning.
In 1883 Magazine, he explained that he personally understood the boys to be alive.
He also acknowledged that the final sequence could look like a depiction of another world.
In an interview with The Korea Times, he described the ending as a blessing for the children.
He said he directed the young actors to express joy and freedom.
In Film Comment, he connected the ending to the idea that the children should not have to change themselves to fit society’s expectations.
These comments establish three important points.
First, Kore-eda did not intend the final scene as a straightforward confirmation of the boys’ deaths.
Second, he recognized that audiences might interpret it differently.
Third, the emotional purpose of the scene was to celebrate the boys’ ability to accept themselves.
This does not mean that every other interpretation is worthless.
Movies can create meanings beyond their creators’ intentions.
But it does mean that the death theory should not be presented as the film’s official answer.
The director’s intended ending is one of life and affirmation, even though its visual language leaves room for darker readings.
Why Is the Ending So Important to Minato and Yori’s Relationship?
The final scene is not simply about surviving a storm.
It is about the boys’ ability to exist without shame.
Minato has difficulty understanding and expressing his feelings.
Yori is subjected to cruelty by a father who tries to force him into a narrow idea of normality.
Their friendship becomes a space where they can experience affection and happiness without constantly explaining themselves.
But outside that space, they face judgment.
The adults around them often use ordinary language that carries painful assumptions.
They speak about growing up properly.
Being masculine.
Living a normal life.
Having a normal family.
Those expectations can sound harmless to the people expressing them.
For the children, they can become overwhelming.
The final run offers a visual alternative.
Minato and Yori are not apologizing.
They are not hiding their happiness.
They are not asking anyone to approve of who they are.
They simply run together.
This is why the director’s interpretation matters.
A story that ended by confirming their deaths would carry a very different emotional message.
Kore-eda wanted to give them the possibility of life.
Why Doesn’t the Film Show a Clear Rescue?
A conventional rescue scene would resolve the plot’s uncertainty.
Saori and Hori would find the boys.
Everyone would know they had survived.
The audience could leave with a simple sense of relief.
But Monster is structured around the danger of assuming that one perspective contains the whole truth.
The first section follows Minato’s mother.
The second shifts toward his teacher.
The third reveals the children’s experiences.
Each new perspective changes the meaning of events we thought we understood.
A final scene centered on the adults finding the boys would risk returning control of the story to the adults.
Instead, the film gives the last images to Minato and Yori.
Their experience becomes the final perspective.
The audience is asked to see their happiness without filtering it through the people who misunderstood them.
The ambiguity is therefore connected to the movie’s entire narrative design.
We want certainty.
The film asks us to recognize the limits of our certainty.
Is the Ending Happy or Tragic?
The answer depends on whether we are discussing the images alone or the director’s stated intention.
As an isolated sequence, the ending can feel ambiguous.
The storm, missing children, altered landscape, and rebirth imagery make a tragic reading possible.
According to Kore-eda’s explanation, however, the ending is hopeful.
The boys survive.
They affirm themselves.
They move toward a future in which they do not need to become different people to deserve happiness.
That does not erase the pain they have experienced.
Yori’s abuse remains serious.
The bullying and misunderstanding have caused real harm.
The adults have not suddenly become perfect.
But the final scene refuses to define the boys solely through that suffering.
They are allowed joy.
They are allowed freedom.
They are allowed a future.
That is a more demanding kind of hope than a simple happy ending.
It does not claim that the world has already become safe.
It insists that the boys deserve to live in one that is.
Final Interpretation: They Did Not Need to Be Reborn
The greatest misunderstanding in Monster may be the assumption that Minato and Yori must become someone else to find happiness.
Throughout the film, they encounter a world that struggles to accept them.
Adults misinterpret their behavior.
Their relationship becomes a source of anxiety.
Ordinary expectations about masculinity and normality create extraordinary pressure.
The idea of rebirth seems to promise escape.
But the final scene offers a different answer.
The boys emerge from the storm.
They recognize that they are still themselves.
And they run forward.
The sunlight does not need to represent heaven.
It can represent a future.
The missing barrier does not need to prove that they have left the world of the living.
It can symbolize a boundary they are finally free to cross.
And their joy does not need to be a reward granted after death.
It can be something they deserve while alive.
Minato and Yori do not need new lives. They need a world that allows them to live their existing lives without shame.
That is the most powerful reading of the ending—and the one most closely aligned with Kore-eda’s own explanation.
The final question is not whether the boys have become different people.
It is whether the world around them can become different enough to accept them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Minato and Yori die in Monster (2023)?
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda has stated that, in his interpretation, the boys are alive. However, the film’s final images are sufficiently ambiguous that some viewers interpret them as an afterlife sequence.
Is the ending of Monster (2023) a dream?
The movie does not explicitly identify the final scene as a dream. It uses heightened imagery and an unresolved transition to create an open-ended emotional experience.
Why is the railway barrier missing at the end?
Some viewers interpret the missing barrier as evidence that the boys have entered another world. Symbolically, it can also represent freedom from the restrictions and expectations imposed upon them.
What does rebirth mean in Monster (2023)?
Rebirth is connected to the boys’ desire to escape shame and social pressure. The ending suggests that they do not need to become different people; they need to accept themselves.
What happened to the boys in the abandoned train?
They shelter in the abandoned train during the storm. The film does not show a conventional rescue or confirm that they die there. Kore-eda’s intended interpretation is that they survive.
Why does the ending look like heaven?
The bright sunlight, green landscape, and joyful running evoke imagery commonly associated with peace and transcendence. Kore-eda intended the sequence as a celebration of the boys’ lives and self-acceptance.
Did Kore-eda confirm the boys survived?
He has explicitly said that, for him, they are not dead. He has also acknowledged that viewers interpret the ending differently.
What is the main message of Monster (2023)?
The film challenges the assumptions people make about others and examines how ordinary expectations can hurt vulnerable children. Its ending affirms the boys’ right to live as themselves.
Director Interviews and Further Reading
Hirokazu Kore-eda on the Ending — 1883 Magazine
The director directly discusses whether Minato and Yori survived and explains why the final scene represents self-affirmation.
Kore-eda Describes the Final Scene as a Blessing — The Korea Times
Kore-eda explains how he directed the actors and why he wanted the ending to celebrate the boys.
Interview: Hirokazu Kore-eda on Monster — Film Comment
A discussion of the film’s central question: whether the children must change or whether society must change.
TTK Original — Beyond the Headlines
An independent analysis of the final scene, rebirth imagery, and director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s explanation of Monster (2023).